9 When without hands she doth thus castles build,
Sees without eyes, and without feet doth run;
When she digests the world, yet is not fill'd:
By her own powers these miracles are done.
10 When she defines, argues, divides, compounds,
Considers virtue, vice, and general things;
And marrying divers principles and grounds,
Out of their match a true conclusion brings.
11 These actions in her closet, all alone,
Retired within herself, she doth fulfil;
Use of her body's organs she hath none,
When she doth use the powers of wit and will.
12 Yet in the body's prison so she lies,
As through the body's windows she must look,
Her divers powers of sense to exercise,
By gathering notes out of the world's great book.
13 Nor can herself discourse or judge of ought,
But what the sense collects, and home doth bring;
And yet the powers of her discoursing thought,
From these collections is a diverse thing.
14 For though our eyes can nought but colours see,
Yet colours give them not their power of sight;
So, though these fruits of sense her objects be,
Yet she discerns them by her proper light.
15 The workman on his stuff his skill doth show,
And yet the stuff gives not the man his skill;
Kings their affairs do by their servants know,
But order them by their own royal will.
16 So, though this cunning mistress, and this queen,
Doth, as her instruments, the senses use,
To know all things that are felt, heard, or seen;
Yet she herself doth only judge and choose.
17 Even as a prudent emperor, that reigns
By sovereign title over sundry lands,
Borrows, in mean affairs, his subjects' pains,
Sees by their eyes, and writeth by their hands:
18 But things of weight and consequence indeed,
Himself doth in his chamber then debate;
Where all his counsellors he doth exceed,
As far in judgment, as he doth in state.